Energised

Yesterday afternoon I visited the Apple Store in Shinsaibashi to present my dead battery. In short the Genius found the battery defective and issued a replacement. The whole caper took about twenty minutes, waiting included. As always I was stunned by the professional and enjoyable environment of the store and the quality of the support.

I made a few observations during my visit. For one, there was a guy walking around checking the customers waiting for their Genius Bar appointment. He wore a T-shirt captioned ‘I can make things happen.’ In contrast, the Geniuses’ shirts read ‘Relax. I’m on it.’ I found these a lot cooler than the usual ‘Hello. I’m XY. Can I help you?’ name tags.

When checking the battery the Genius used the following method. First he consulted the System Profiler and checked the battery status. Then he attached an iPod (!) to reboot into a little battery checker program which reported in huge red text that the battery was bad. All this was done with me able to watch as well, so I even caught the line where the battery self-reported its bad status.

What I find remarkable is that he could have used some third-party USB stick, but in the name of product unity the battery checker was put on an iPod. Because little things like this matter.